Lecture-05: Consumer Research

Musa Miah
M.B.A(H.R.M),B.B.A(Management)
Lecturer, Dept. of Management
National Institute of textile engineering & Research(NITER)
E-mail:[email protected]
Chapter outline…
 Consumer Research
 Objectives of consumer research
 Model of consumer research
 Process of Consumer Research
 Methods of Consumer Research
 Importance of consumer research.
 What is Consumer Research?
 Consumer research is the practice of identifying the preferences,
attitudes, motivations, and buying behavior of the targeted customer.
 Consumer research is a part of market research in which inclination,
motivation and purchase behavior of the targeted customers are identified.
 Consumer research helps businesses or organizations understand customer
psychology and create detailed purchasing behavior profiles.
 Using a variety of customer research methods to gather this information,
shared traits among the different customer groups are identified and
categorized into customer segments and buyer personas, which are then
used to create marketing campaigns targeting a specific segment or persona.
 Consumer research is the key to improving your product and successfully
marketing to customers who want to do business with you. Interviews,
surveys, and other customer research methods are some of your best friends
when it comes to helping your company consistently increase its revenue
year on year.
Consumer Research Objectives..
When a brand is developing a new
product, consumer research is
conducted to understand what
consumers want or need in a product,
what attributes are missing and what
are they looking for? An
efficient survey really makes it easy for
organizations to conduct efficient
research

Consumer research Consumer

is conducted to research is
improve brand conducted to boost
equity. sales.
 Consumer Research Model….
 According to a study conducted, till a decade Net Promoter Score (NPS) helps brands
ago, researchers thought differently about the identify brand loyalty and customer
consumer psychology, where little or no satisfaction with their consumers. Net
emphasis was put on emotions, mood or the Promoter Score survey uses a single question
situation that could influence a customer’s that is sent to customers to identify their
buying decision. brand loyalty and level of customer
 Many believed marketing was applied satisfaction. Response to this question is
economics. Consumers always took decisions measured on a scale between 0-10 and based
based on statistics and math and evaluated on this consumers can be identified as:
goods and services rationally and then selected
items from those brands that gave them the  Detractors: Who have given a score
highest customer satisfaction at the lowest cost. between 0-6.
 However, this is no longer the situation.  Passives: Who have given a score
Consumers are very well aware of brands and between 7-8.
their competitors. A loyal customer is the one
who would not only return to repeatedly  Promoters: Who have given a score
purchase from a brand but also, recommend between 9-10.
his/her family and friends to buy from the
same brand even if the prices are slightly higher
but provides an exceptional customer service
for products purchased or services offered.
 Types of Consumer Research Method
1. Qualitative Consumer Research
Qualitative research is descriptive in nature, It’s a method that uses open-ended questions, to
gain meaningful insights from respondents and heavily relies on the following market research
methods:
 Focus Groups: Focus groups as the name suggests is a small group of highly validated
subject experts who come together to analyze a product or service. Focus group comprises
of 6-10 respondents. A moderator is assigned to the focus group, who helps facilitate
discussions among the members to draw meaningful insights.
 One-to-one Interview: This is a more conversational method, where the researcher
asks open-ended questions to collect data from the respondents. This method heavily
depends on the expertise of the researcher. How much the researcher is able to probe with
relevant questions to get maximum insights. This is a time-consuming method and can take
more than one attempt to gain the desired insights.
 Content/ Text Analysis: Text analysis is a qualitative research method where researchers
analyze social life by decoding words and images from the documents available. Researchers
analyze the context in which the images are used and draw conclusions from them. Social
media is an example of text analysis.
Types of Consumer Research Method
2.Quantitative Consumer Research
 In the age of technology and information, meaningful data is more
precious than platinum. Billion dollar companies have risen and fallen on
how well they have been able to collect and analyze data, to draw
validated insights.
 Quantitative research is all about numbers and statistics. An evolved
consumer who purchases regularly can vouch for how customer-centric
businesses have become today. It’s all about customer satisfaction, to gain
loyal customers. With just one questions companies are able to collect
data, that has the power to make or break a company.
 Online surveys, questionnaires, and polls are the preferred data
collection tools. Data that is obtained from consumers is then
statistically, mathematically and numerically evaluated to understand
consumer preference.
 Consumer Research Process
1. Develop research
objectives: The first step to the
consumer research process is to clearly
define the research objective, the
purpose of research, why is the
research being conducted, to
understand what? A clear statement of
purpose can help emphasize the
purpose.
2. Collect Secondary data: Collect
secondary data first, it helps in
understanding if research has been
conducted earlier and if there are any
pieces of evidence related to the
subject matter that can be used by an
organization to make informed
decisions regarding consumers.
Consumer Research Process
3. Primary Research: In primary research organizations or
businesses collect their own data or employ a third party to collect
data on their behalf. This research makes use of various data
collection methods (qualitative and quantitative) that helps
researchers collect data first hand.
4. Collect and analyze data: Data is collected and analyzed and
inference is drawn to understand consumer behavior and purchase
pattern.
5. Prepare report: Finally, a report is prepared for all the findings
by analyzing data collected so that organizations are able to make
informed decisions and think of all probabilities related to consumer
behavior. By putting the study into practice, organizations can
become customer-centric and manufacture products or render
services that will help them achieve excellent customer satisfaction.
 Consumer Research Methods
1. The studies of customer satisfaction
One can determine the degree of satisfaction of consumers in relation to the quality of products through:
 Informal methods such as conversations with staff about products and services according to the dashboards.
 Past and present questionnaires/surveys that consumers might have filled that identify their needs.
2. The investigation of the consumer decision process
It is very interesting to know the consumer’s needs, what motivates them to buy, and how is the decision-making
process carried out, though:
 Deploying relevant surveys and receiving responses from a target audience.
3. Proof of concept
Businesses can test how well accepted their marketing ideas are by:
 The use of surveys to find out if current or potential consumer see your products as a rational and useful benefit.
 Conducting personal interviews or focus group sessions with clients to understand how they respond to marketing
ideas.
4. Knowing your market position
You can find out how your current and potential consumers see your products, and how they compare it with your
competitors by:
 Sales figures talk louder than any other aspect, once you get to know the comparison in the sales figures it is easy
to understand your market position within the market segment.
 Attitudes of consumers while making a purchase also helps in understanding the market hold.
 Consumer Research Methods
45. Branding tests and user experience
You can determine how your customers feel with their brands and product names by:
 The use of focus groups and surveys designed to assess emotional responses to your products and
brands.
 The participation of researchers to study the performance of their brand in the market through
existing and available brand research.
6. Price changes
You can investigate how your customers accept or not the price changes by using formulas that measure
the revenue – multiplying the number of items you sold, by the price of each item. These tests allow you
to calculate if your total income increases or decreases after making the price changes by:
 Calculation of changes in the quantities of products demanded by their customers, together with
changes in the price of the product.
 Measure the impact of the price on the demand of the product according to the needs of the client.
7. Social media monitoring
Another way to measure feedback and your customer service is by controlling your commitment to
social media and feedback. Social networks (especially Facebook) are becoming a common element of the
commercialization of many businesses and are increasingly used by their customers to provide
information on customer needs, service experiences, share and file complaints.
 Importance of Consumer Research
 To understand market readiness: However good a product or
service may be, consumers have to be ready to accept it. Creating a
product requires investments which in return expect ROI from
product or service purchases. However, if a market is mature
enough to accept this utility, it has a low chance of succeeding by
tapping into market potential.
 Identify target consumers: By conducting consumer research,
brands and organizations can understand their target market based
on geographic segmentation and know who exactly is interested in
buying their products.
 Product/Service updates through feedback: Conducting
consumer research, provides valuable feedback from consumers
about the attributes and features of products and services
Thank You….